India preparing to produce over 5 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses in 2022: PM Narendra Modi at G20 summit

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday (October 30, 2021) attended the G-20 Summit session in Rome and during his address, he said that India is preparing to produce over 5 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses next year. PM Modi in his intervention at the session on 'Global Economy and Global Health' also flagged the issue of facilitating international travel and talked about the mechanism of mutual recognition of vaccine certification as a means of achieving this.

"India has always been serious about its global obligations. Today, on this G-20 platform, I want to tell you all that India is preparing to produce more than 5 billion vaccine doses for the world next year. This commitment of India will go a long way in preventing this infection. Therefore, it is necessary that Indian vaccines be recognized by WHO at the earliest," the Prime Minister said.

During the first in-person G20 Summit since the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020, PM Modi said that to fight COVID-19, we all have put forward the vision of 'One Earth - One Health' and to deal with any such crisis in future, this vision can become a huge force in the world.

During my remarks, I highlighted aspects relating to India’s contributions in the global fight against COVID-19, the vision of ‘One Earth, One Health’, furthering innovation in healthcare, need for resilient global supply chains and leveraging technology for human empowerment. — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 30, 2021

He also expressed satisfaction over the G20's decision to come up with a 15 per minimum corporate tax to make the global financial architecture more 'fair'.

The decision, notably, is aimed at ensuring that companies pay a certain amount of tax in the countries they are located in.

"I myself suggested this in the G-20 meeting in 2014 and I would like to thank the G-20 for making concrete progress in this direction. An increasing international movement is necessary for economic recovery. For this, we have to ensure mutual recognition of vaccine certificates of different countries," PM Modi said.

He stated that India played the role of the 'pharmacy of the world' and delivered medicines to more than 150 countries. 

"Along with this, we also put our full strength in increasing vaccine research and manufacturing. In a short span of time, we have administered over one billion vaccine doses in India. By controlling the infection in one-sixth of the world's population, India has also contributed to making the world safer, and has also reduced the chances of further mutation of the virus," PM Modi added.

The Prime Minister also invited G-20 countries to make India a trusted partner in their economic recovery and supply chain diversification.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Modi is scheduled to attend the second session of the G20 Summit on climate change and the environment on Sunday. He is also expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and the outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

(With agency inputs)

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